


Flesh and Blood

by fanlon



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23648446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanlon/pseuds/fanlon
Summary: While waiting for Noctis in Insomnia, Ardyn is haunted by old memories.
Relationships: Ardyn Izunia & Somnus Lucis Caelum
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Flesh and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> An old fic I wrote just after the Ep Ardyn anime was released but before the DLC came out.

There was a stirring in his veins. A frantic beating, like wings against a cage. His scourge rose in him like acid, a sort of survival instinct. 

Noctis was awake. 

Ardyn uncurled from his seat on the throne, making a display of yawning loudly and stretching his arms. Of course, he hadn’t been asleep. He hadn’t slept in over two millennia. The closest he got now was to drift off into a kind of a trance while the voices of daemons whispered and hissed and screamed in the back of his head. 

Ardyn knew when danger was coming. He would feel the Scourge writhing inside him. Like a parasite, it wanted its host alive— after his failed execution in Solheim, _that_ was made patently clear. He sat for a while, looking at his hand, flexing and unflexing his fingers, focusing on the tendons tensing and relaxing. It looked very real, very convincing, he thought. Almost like it was his own hand. Standing up, he thought about where he needed to go. Sometimes, if he went for too long without using the Scourge to travel, it would be unpleasant when he came to use it again. Just like — just like when — his hands flew to his head, as if trying to contain the memory, but it was too late. 

Just like the first time. He held up the hand he had been looking at before. Now it was wrapped in white cloth. Shaking, he stared at an arm he barely recognised.

It was disintegrating. 

Grasping at his hand with the other, he cradled his arms to his chest as if it was some external force that was unravelling him, rather than his own body. Reflexively, he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing happened. Instead, his chest spasmed, his lungs filling with fluid. Falling to his knees, he coughed violently, spewing black ooze on the floor in front of him. His legs were withering under him. Ardyn heaved again, desperate to breathe, and watched as his arm twist away from him like smoke. He reached out for someone, anyone, to help him, his eyesight failing. There was no reprieve. The walls of the throne room stood silent and dispassionate as ever around the lone figure that writhed in the dark, screaming silently as his body was torn from his bones.

Ardyn pushed the vision away, angry at himself. He looked down at his hand again. It had a black glove on, the way it was supposed to. His memories had a habit of getting mixed up ever since he’d come out of Angelgard. They liked to resurface and possess him at inopportune moments, playing over and over again, a trauma lodged in his heart like a shard of glass. 

That was what happened when you opened your body to hordes of daemons, he supposed. It was difficult to keep your own mind in order. He could control it better now, of course. He could take that disassociation and direct it. On a good day he’d just snap his fingers and go. His fault for getting rusty, now of all times. Shakily, he got to his feet. He closed his eyes and pictured himself outside the Citadel. A deep breath in, and… release. 

He moved like ink through water, tendrils of himself whispering through the gloom. This wasn’t just warping, which apparently _anybody_ that the Crystal favoured could do now. This was far beyond that. Something only he could do. The Scourge wasn’t all bad, he supposed. Great for travel. Real drag on your sanity, though. 

Materialising outside the Citadel on the ruins of one of the now dilapidated buildings, Ardyn felt his way feet first on to a cold concrete rooftop. He wanted a good view of Insomnia. The Crown City lay under him, and above him the sky swirled eternally with ash. It could have been night, or day, or any time at all. Dark, stygian creatures slithered through the unnatural dusk of the ruined city, swollen to enormous size, glutted on the miasma of the scourge. Though the entire world was trapped in the winter of the Starscourge, in Insomnia the air reigned heavy and oppressive with it. The pollution seeped from Ardyn’s every pore. 

Insomnia’s perpetual darkness made for good cover. Ardyn could easily prowl the rooftops and ruins at his leisure. The only thing an onlooker might have noticed, had they glanced up at the skyline at that moment, would be two faint pinpricks of amber light, gazing down from afar. 

From Ardyn’s vantage point, he was well hidden, but still managed to have a view of the entrance to the city. He spotted the small figures of four people far below him, making their cautious way into the city. About time — he’d waited long enough. 

He scanned the face of the one at the lead, and in an instant felt the world shrink around him. A chill bloomed in his chest, fixing him to the spot, as he stared at the man approaching the Citadel. 

Somnus Lucis Caelum was marching on Insomnia. 

No, it couldn’t be true. His brother was dead — he had died millenia ago. He had visited the tomb himself. But here he was, striding with that lazy gait of his straight towards the Citadel. He seemed fairly unconcerned, turning at points to talk with his retinue, dressed in their Glaive uniforms. Somnus was wearing royal robes. Ardyn’s robes by right. Somnus had stolen them from him as surely as if he’d snatched them off Ardyn’s back himself. 

Had Somnus come back in person to finish the job he failed to do two thousand years ago? For the first time in a very, very long time, Ardyn felt real fear. 

Ardyn watched transfixed as Somnus drew closer, studying his face closely, trying to read his next move — and then came to a realisation. He nearly laughed. Of course, it wasn’t Somnus at all. It was the little prince, Noctis. It seemed like the Astrals had one last cruel hand to play. True, Noctis’s resemblance to his brother in his youth had not escaped Ardyn — but _this_? 

It was like looking at a ghost. 

Ardyn had to exercise every ounce of his willpower not to fly down to where he stood and rip his head clean off his shoulders. By gods, he wanted to. But for now, he would retreat. He had to wait until the time was right. Not long now. 

* * *

_“Fashionably late, I see.”_ Ardyn called to Noctis, trying to goad him. Taking a bow from atop a well-placed lamppost, he addressed the crystal’s champion and his retinue.

 _“Insomnia, the Crown City of my kingdom!”_ He announced, revelling in the confusion as he set the city ablaze with a snap of his fingers. He had ruined the city already, but there was always the opportunity to burn the remaining rubble to the ground.

 _“You’re sick!”_ Noctis spat back at him, and Ardyn was taken aback for a moment. It was only a moment, not enough for the brat to tell, almost not enough for Ardyn to know it himself, but it shook him. 

Without warning, without permission, Somnus stood before him again, an expression on his face Ardyn had never forgotten, even after millennia. 

“You’re… you’re sick, Ardyn.”

Ardyn remembered the look of shock his brother’s face — sincere, unguarded. The two of them were alone in the throne room. He remembered the effort it took to draw himself up to full height in front of his younger brother, putting all his weight onto his good leg, focusing on breathing — and not on his urge to violently cough out the disease festering in every organ in his body. 

“I’m fine, really. It is but a temporary sickness, soon to pass, once I’ve rested."

"Ardyn..."

"Somnus," Ardyn had thrown back with irritation, "It's none of your concern."

Somnus took a step forward, putting one foot on the lowest stair of the throne. "You need to give up this martyr complex you've got. It's going to kill you, and for what? For nothing. You'll just die. Is that what you want?" 

Ardyn ignored him, instead resolutely making his way down the steps, his body heavy with pain, his head light with fever. He could feel Somnus’ gaze on him, and knew that he could never let him see the extent of his disease. Ardyn was tired of hiding it, and part of him _wanted_ Somnus to see, but Ardyn wasn’t stupid — the people had thrown themselves at his feet, and Somnus had stood on the sidelines, his resentment manifesting like an aura around him. Any weakness Ardyn showed, Somnus could use as a weapon. But Ardyn was tired of hiding the toll his healing was taking on him. He knew he looked terrible, he knew from looking in the mirror the years the Scourge had added to him, he felt the life it had drained from him, leaving him hollow and heavy every morning when the dawn broke. Was it too much to hope that his own brother might stop sulking for once and show him some _sympathy?_

As he approached the bottom of the stairs where Somnus stood, Ardyn felt his weaker leg buckle under him, briefly, just long enough for him to lose his footing for a moment. He stumbled and on instinct threw out his hands to steady himself. His left hand thrust out towards his Somnus. Somnus was quick to catch himself, but not before Ardyn saw Somnus recoiling, moving away from him. Ardyn almost laughed. He would have done, had he the strength. Et tu, Somnus? 

There was a long silence while Ardyn steadied himself. Somnus didn’t move. He didn’t flinch again, but he made no attempt to come to his brother’s aid either. Finally, they locked eyes with each other. There was an expression on Somnus that Ardyn couldn’t quite read. Concern? Or... something more calculating? 

“You could at least — you could at least help me!”

Ardyn raised his hand up towards Somnus’ face, bitterness coursing through him. In his mind, he thought to put his hand out towards his brother’s face out of spite, and watch him flinch. To his horror, he watched his hand clench into a fist, and swing towards Somnus.

Somnus caught him easily by the wrist, stopping Ardyn just short of hitting him. He staggered slightly, and for a moment his head bowed so Ardyn couldn’t see his expression. Quickly, Somnus righted himself, his grip still firm, and stared in silence in Ardyn, who shrank under his gaze. There was a pain in Ardyn’s chest, a steel grip contracting his heart. Never, not ever, had he raised a hand towards his brother. Not like this. 

Somnus’ eyes grew wide, and a shiver of emotion passed across his face. Ardyn desperately tried to think of something to say, something to take back what had happened, but then saw something that chilled him to the bone. He watched Somnus’ gaze fix onto his own, his pupils dilating, and his mouth tighten in grim satisfaction. It was a look Ardyn knew well. He had seen it on Somnus’ face when they would ride together out hunting: when he closed in on his quarry.

He gazed into brother’s eyes and no longer knew him, and knew he felt the same.

“You know,” Somnus said finally, his voice almost playful, “I’ve been thinking lately about new ways to cleanse this plague. Just destroying the demons isn’t getting to the source of the problem.”

Somnus twisted his grip suddenly, sending a sharp pain down Ardyn’s arm.

“Like an infection, it needs to be burned out.”

He twisted again, and pushed down, grinding the bones of Ardyn’s arm against each other. Ardyn didn’t move. He watched Somnus. He watched his eyes rove up and down — waiting for a reaction. 

“The Scourge is like a festering wound.”

Somnus released his grip, throwing Ardyn’s hand away from him and stepping back.

“It needs to be cauterised.”

It was over now. Somnus knew, and Ardyn knew it. It was a truth they both knew but could not dare to admit in the open. Ardyn’s sickness was more than just ill health. He swayed on the spot, dangerously close to fainting, but held himself upright to take one last look at Somnus before he left. He tried to think of something to say, some final words of parting, but there was nothing that could bridge the gulf between them.

Ardyn felt himself unbalanced again, except now his vision was filled with crimson. The Old Wall of Insomnia towered before him. He suddenly remembered where he was. No, it wasn't his brother in front of him after all, though by the gods, by the pain it gave him, they looked so alike. He turned away for a moment, laughing, careful not to let… Somnus? Noctis? See him with his guard down. When he spoke again it was with his usual air of amused indifference. 

_“How could you say that to your own flesh and blood?”_

  
  



End file.
